"Lead soldier!" Roger repeated wildly. "That's all any of you are! Lead soldiers, lead soldiers, lead soldiers!"

Bois-Guilbert fell back shuddering before him, and the fighting men dropped their swords and all the people fell on their knees, and a murmur of awe ran from lip to lip among the crowd.

"The Words of Power!" cried some, and "The Elfish Charm!" cried others, and "I said 'twas no mortal boy!" cried Lionel.

And Roger jumped down from his perch and pushed his way through them, and as he did so they seemed to grow paler and dimmer, and as he ran down the stairs the walls of the castle seemed to grow fainter, the way the picture on your television set does when a tube is ailing and your mother has to send for the man.

That television metaphor shows how modern Knight's Castle was--for 1956. Like Nesbit and L. Frank Baum, he made his young heroes' shifts into fantasy all the more plausible by mentioning contemporary details. But time has moved on. What details in this passage would today's children understand without great exertion on the part of an adult?

3 comments:

There are few pleasures in life quite as keen as having a group of schoolchildren come into your library, see the multiple copies of Edward Eager on your shelves, and say, "Oh, SNAP!"

It recently occurred to me that Eager is one of the rare American fantasy authors aside from Baum that are still read today. Obviously he owes much to Nesbit, but when I was trying to come up with American fantasy pre-60s that's still popular, I found myself oddly stuck.

About the Author

J. L. BELL is a writer and reader of fantasy literature for children. His favorite authors include L. Frank Baum, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper. He is an Assistant Regional Advisor in the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and was the editor of Oziana, creative magazine of the International Wizard of Oz Club, from 2004 to 2010.

Living in Massachusetts, Bell also writes about the American Revolution at Boston 1775.